Poverty in Japan - <AUTHOR> http://japaneseruleof7.com/poverty-in-japan/ <comment><USER2> I've lived in Japan, and I love Japan for all its charms. Westerners definitely romanticize it, but day-to-day life for local people isn't all roses. Something brings one to reality when you see raggedy old men vomiting outside Pachinko parlours, the scantily clad "massage" women shivering in zero degree weather, or the mentally ill muttering to himself while bumping into the walls at the conbini. Aging population, high rate of alcoholism, difficult work culture, and untreated mental illness are some things you don't see on a postcard, but they are real.

<comment><USER3> It is a pleasantly polite (but unarmed) society, and one of the most foreign for an American to visit even though parts of it (cars, shops, buildings) may look the same. The dichotomy between the surface familiarity and utter cultural (and language) difference is what makes it so wonderfully bizarre! Since I know people who work in the hospitality industry I don't romanticize it, but it's not a horror either. There are crazy places like tourist Roppongi and other red-light districts, but it is still really safe even in the least well of parts of town (so much better than sketchy parts of LA/NY).

It's also changing. I only really started regularly seeing random (not artistic) graffiti around 2010... and that's after visiting for almost 20 years. Certainly, I've known about poverty in Japan (mostly seen in Tokyo) since the late 90s and 2000s bust. The late 80s boom/bust priced a lot of people out of housing and they've been slowly cut out of the workforce as well.

The kids really started changing in the 90s and by the 2000s a lot of the creatives were wearing t-shirts and tennies to work, which was a huge change (although some traditional places still wear uniforms today). They've (as a cohort) changed some of the norms of work and life (not getting married or having kids!), but have also hidden themselves in weird little sub-cultures (anime, videogames, shopping, karoshi).

I should know what's going on in Japanese social media, but I really don't. Anyone have comments on that? It can't be as weird and twisted as Korea.

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with Korea, but I don't think there's anything particularly weird about Japanese social media. The obsession with privacy is eroding over time, but still relatively strong. Mixi basically died and was replaced with a combination of LINE, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Facebook is popular in some circles, but not nearly as active as in the US. It's almost closer to LinkedIn, like your professional face (even if not strictly about business like LinkedIn).

People often have multiple Twitter accounts for different purposes and it's incredibly popular. Maybe the only country where Twitter's still growing?

Instagram use is basically the same as the US I'd say. It's helped erode the privacy obsession, with more people posting selfies and such.

And LINE is the juggernaut being the primary social graph of Japan. It's the default for one-to-one and group chats, and some people use the other features like the wall-like feature, shared albums, etc.

<comment><USER5> I really like LINE and wanted to use it but the only person I knew who used it was my Mongolian coworker (I lived in Portland at the time) - everyone else looked at me like I was nuts when I tried to talk it up.

<comment><USER3> Yes... LINE is the communication protocol in Japan and some of Taiwan. I found the use of much more involved emoticons/stickers interesting.

Outside of that WeChat is absolutely critical in China and everyone who needs to work with China. However, not having a bank account in China makes using many of the Wechat capabilities impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Of course, if you saw it in your own country, you'd recognize it for what it > was—people working their asses off, even well into old age, not out of some > perverse industriousness, but simply because they've gotta eat.

Until we invent replicators, everyone's gotta work to eat. Even folks on HN are separated from that reality by a year or so of cushion, if even that. What people in the US admire about Japanese culture is their attitude to the work they've got to do to survive. It's not like folks in the US don't have to work to eat. But if you've ever been in an airport security line in both places you can tell the difference.

<comment><USER7> Not true for everyone though, is it? There are people that get the privilege of existing without working anything. Besides, I say that the term you mentioned for solving this issue, "until we invent replicators" makes it sound like we are bound this way and could not solve this problem were that we wanted to. No, I think that is not true, we simply don't want to and some of us are rather concerned of the side effects of doing so. But I don't think that this issue would be insurmountable, if we would want to fix it.

<comment><USER8> The beliefs about replicators and transforming planets like mars are just a futurist fantasy about how our problems will all be magically solved in the wonderful future, its great escapism to avoid caring about real issues we really can solve right now, and a very convenient dismissal if issues we can address _right now_ with "The future will fix it"!.

Note, many of the people that don't need to work are extraordinarily wealthy, hundreds of thousands of times over what would be required to lead a reasonable life, their wealth bases usually built, directly or indirectly, from the efforts of the same people that have to work until they are 70.

But yeah, in the future, somehow this arrangement will change into a magical utopia, not a situation where those same wealthy horde an even more absurd amount of power, while everyone else struggles to scrape by, or is just discarded entirely in the face of cheaper and better automation that is owned by the wealthier rentier class.

You see this callous disregard on HN every time an article about Uber or Amazon treating their employees like shit, remarks to the effect of "they shouldn't be complaining, cant wait till they are replaced by robots", and I think its disgusting, but its a telling remark about how employees are going to be viewed increasingly in the future.

If we don't even want to bother broaching the serious wide-cutting issues we have _right now_ with poverty and inequality in our society, I fail to see how the hell technology that effectively massively magnifies the economic power of whoever can afford them the most will do anything but make the situation far, far more dire.

<comment><USER9> I don't think the OP post was being serious about replicators. It was a geek version of 'until money grows on trees'.

And then the next reply was saying we don't necessarily need replicators to solve this problem.

<comment><USER8> not all replies are a refutation or dispute with what was being said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Weird that this guy has lived in Japan for ten years, but he groups a bunch of culture aspects in with his evidence of poverty. Preparing a lunch box, recycling bath water for laundry, using kerosene heaters? These are just how things are done in Japan, no matter how much money you have.

Maybe that's one of the cultural differences this author is missing. Most people in Japan, even when they are far more wealthy than their neighbors, still live exactly the same lifestyle.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps. Yet the other things he points out can't be explained away so easily, so the point stands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Spike Japan is another well-written blog covering poverty & decay in Japan, specifically Tokyo. It also has nice photos of things rusting. [https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/](https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/)

<comment><USER11> Sorry, it actually covers Hokkaido.

<comment><USER12> Poking around it seems like the older posts are about the Tokyo area and the newer ones about Hokkaido.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > When I first moved from the U.S., it all seemed fantastically romantic. Old > wooden houses without insulation? That's "traditional culture." A family of > four in an apartment the size of an American kitchen? Efficient use of > space.

I kind of have trouble parsing this post, as I'm not sure if it's the author's own romanticizing of things, or someone Japanese is telling them this.

<comment><USER12> What he is saying is that when he first came to Japan he mistook the outward signs of poverty for charming cultural quirks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This really hits home for me. I spent a year in northern Japan when I was a college student and of course I was just as oblivious as this guy was, just thinking how nice it was that the service was so great everywhere. When I go back now, with more understanding of what it takes to produce that, well, I feel a lot more conflicted, let's say.

</comment><comment><USER14> Um, you all do realize that the guy who writes this blog is known within the English Japan crowd as a fabulist (a storyteller), right?

The characters in this story are all figments of the blog author's imagination.

You all have fallen for yet another Japan hoax. Like the bagel heads or LED braces.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think that I have seen (tripped over) more dead aging alcoholics in Japan (Shinjuku and Shibuya in particular) than any other country I have ever lived in.

I've tried to administer CPR a couple of times, but the Japanese going from point A to point B, (as polite as they are normally), just shrug and move on...

<comment><USER16> I'm just going to say (my own experience only: disclaimer), SF is significantly worse.

I've lived in tokyo a year now and SF 2.5 years and I don't regret my move at all.

The guys lying in the street like that (even if not homeless) is actually culturally accepted. You see people sleeping in all sorts of places in Tokyo.

I won't comment on whether that's "good" or "bad" but it's definitely different than the US. I still heavily prefer Tokyo despite that (I don't see it that often in practice)

The worst areas are by far Roppongi and Shibuya. Admittedly, I don't go to Shinjuku as much.

<comment><USER17> > The guys lying in the street like that (even if not homeless) is actually > culturally accepted.

It isn't. It, however, is precisely what the blog talks about: newcomers explaining things away as "cute cultural quirks".

<comment><USER16> I'll give you that it's not considered "polite" but I guess I should say it's "expected"?

Let me correct myself a bit. I guess what I should have said was public places? For example cafes or mcdonalds you can find tons of people sleeping in there, another example is train stations.

Obviously yes these are very different things, hence my correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been to Japan a few times and I'm the fucking idiot who explained it away.

Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER19> I see poverty in Japan and I have no illusion that for many people here life is hard. But where is better? I often travel to US and it is like going to a third-world country. And I only visit nice places there!

<comment><USER20> Have you been to western/northern europe or Australia? I've visited Paris, Berlin and Zürich and haven't seen US levels of poverty in any of them. I've also visited a kinda out of the way part of Russia and while average wealth seemed lower than in the US, the floor was higher.

<comment><USER21> You obviously haven't been to Northern Territory in Australia. The way that the Aboriginal people have been treated, and the conditions they live in are Australia's national shame. People getting hit by cars because they drank too much and fell asleep on the road are a legitimate issue. They even have PSAs to try and stop people from sleeping on the road [1].

[1] [https://youtu.be/XA241Lg70fg](https://youtu.be/XA241Lg70fg)

<comment><USER20> No, I grew up around rural Victoria and my family is from NSW.

Why are things so bad for them in NT? I was under the impression they had much better access to welfare and education than the rest of us. Am I wrong? Are they not partaking of it? Are they discriminated against and unable to find housing/schooling?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is fantastically written, but I hesitate to upvote it out of fear it will increase public support for forcible income redistribution and other forms of centralization.

On the subject of Japan: people overestimate its wealth. It industrialized much more recently than the West, and even pre-industrialization, was behind economically and technologically. What the society has accomplished in such a short period of time is impressive, but looking at its buildings it's clear that it still trails the West in capital concentration.

In any case, there's more to a society than wealth. The orderliness and safety of Japanese society makes for a standard of living that is much higher than it otherwise would be. There are a lot of intangible and hard to quantify benefits to feeling safe in person and property when outside your home at any time of day or night.

<comment><USER12> "I liked this post about poverty, but I hesitate to upvote it because I fear it will increase public support for alleviating poverty."

<comment><USER22> I believe such policies retard economic development, which is the only way to alleviate poverty.

<comment><USER23> Funny, my socialist country ended up with a small surplus in the budget last year. Meanwhile the US has a trillion deficit.

<comment><USER12> I don't agree with that guy but I don't know what surplus/deficit has to do with it.

<comment><USER12> I also wonder which country we're talking about because, really, what extant government could be described as "socialist"? All of this guy's post history seems to be making critical posts about the US, some of which strike me as pretty wide of the mark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The mention in the article of the false perception by people vacationing in japan of describing the japanese as just naturally, culturally happy to serve whites/foreigners well into old age reminds me of how black people were depicted in America (and their depictions are still around here and there...) (fairly similar notions of "just culturally/inherently happy to serve").

I think this may be a part of othering or being able to live on cognitive dissonance?

Edited for clarity; I think people thought I was saying Japanese people are white serving, not that there is a false perception of such.

<comment><USER2> As someone who only spent a fraction of his life in America, I'm always at wonder at how Americans try to find racism/oppression in every situation. As another poster below alludes, life isn't always pleasant. We can't all be equal, but inequality != servitude.

<comment><USER25> We can't all be equal, but we can build a society where old people don't have to work long hours until the day they die, and young people don't have to struggle to pay for electricity or healthcare.

I'm just noting that so we don't fall into the trap of letting our Randian overlords pre-emptively limit the bounds of our imagination.

<comment><USER6> It's not clear that Japan can do that given its population demographics. And I disagree with the premise that old people who can work shouldn't have to. Society should take care of those who can't take care of themselves. But it squanders societal resources to exempt able-bodies people from work simply because they're old.

<comment><USER25> > it squanders societal resources to exempt able-bodies people from work > simply because they're old.

That sounds like the kind of a decision a paperclip maximizer would make to me.

"Societal resources" not being squandered is a perverse thing to optimize for.

Consider two worlds: 1) A world that automatically makes N widgets, and people could add an additional N widgets but choose not to 2) A world that automatically makes 0 widgets, and people add an additional N widgets because they choose to

If you're going for "not squandering societal resources" as the main metric of a society's value, world 2) is strictly superior, because people waste less time on frivolities like leisure and pleasure.

I'm open to arguments, though, that we should spread more leisure and pleasure around the age distribution instead of backloading it. I expect I'd be convinced, even.

<comment><USER6> The situation we're dealing with is scenario 3: a world that makes N widgets, and everyone is used to the quality of life that comes from the society making N widgets, but the population is decreasing and making N widgets is becoming harder and harder. In that situation, why should able-bodied old people get a pass on working?

Japan is not a post-scarcity society. Even if income we distributed completely evenly, it would be about $43,000 per year. That's comfortable, but not so much that Japan could afford to produce a lot less and still enjoy the kind of lifestyle people associate with a developed country.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Whatever happened to the noble art of the manly weep? - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/whatever-happened-to-the-noble-art-of-the-manly-weep <comment><USER2> > It's time to open the floodgates. Time for men to give up emulating the > stone-faced heroes of action movies and be more like the emotive heroes of > Homer, like the weeping kings, saints and statesmen of thousands of years of > human history.

I fully support the premise, but it clearly ignores the reality. A man has to first be convinced that the environment around him will not reject him for crying, before expecting him to be vulnerable in such an unfamiliar way.

Will a crying man be deemed as someone unsuitable for being the emotional pillar in a relationship ?

Will a crying man be seen as someone who can't deal with crisis ?

Will a crying man be seen to be a child ?

No matter how much we tell someone it is alright, they won't believe it to be true until the environment shows it to be so. People talk about toxic masculinity as though it is a problem created only by men. But, the idea of it pervades throughout society. Affecting children, women and men alike. Men can't be the only ones battling it.

A comment pointed towards Khamenei crying at Soleimani's funeral as a sign towards encouraging men to cry. However, I only see it as an example for the contrary. Crying for men carries a weight, that implies that it must be reserved for an occasion special enough to warrant it. Had men crying at the death of their closest friend been customary, then Khamenei's voice cracking at the funeral would have never been reported as a special observation.

<comment><USER3> There have been quite a few crying men that became iconic: Mandela, I seem to remember, and also Helmuth Kohl (and, simlar: Willy Brandt on hus knees). Didn't Obama cry at one of the many church services for victims of gun violence?

And I don't believe these instances derive their power from stigma. None of these people became less respected. In fact I don't remember _any_ man hurt by crying.

The closest is probably Boehner (former Speaker of the House). It was actually his shtick and he would cry at two or three events every week, but the worst he got for that was some mild and sympathetic mocking by Jon Stewart.

And if you want to enlist women in your fight for the right to cry, I don't quite know what you expect from them? It seems they _already_ care rather little about performative manliness, as evidenced by the growing partisan voting gap.

<comment><USER4> It's the difference between weeping "at a distance" versus weeping out of emotion. All the situations you mention involve a man weeping at some tragic part of the world, which I agree is broadly accepted. Same applies to, e.g., crying at a sad movie.

However, it ignores the reality that the most important kind of weeping isn't where you weep because you're recognizing something is socially coded as sad, but where you weep because you're feeling sad. Maybe you lost a job; maybe you feel like a failure; maybe you got your heart broken. And for all of these there's a substantial stigma, in that to be a Real Man(tm) you are forced to embrace your agency and act instead of feel.

A single controlled, manly tear is celebrated; messy weeping is deeply stigmatized, and many women would consider a man who does so weak and unsuitable for a relationship.

<comment><USER5> I like to describe as when a real man cries, he does it alone, in a dark, empty room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've seen my dad cry once, and it involved the death of my mom. From his lack of crying I learned an important lesson that I've been sharing with my kids (1 and 2): it's okay to cry.

I cry in front of them when I'm sad. And then I talk about why I feel the way I do, and that it will be okay. My oldest is developing wonderful empathy. "Why are you sad, daddy?" And then we talk about it. He probably doesn't understand it a lot, but I know he's learning that it's okay to feel these feelings.

Sadness is not a nice feeling, but it's a valid feeling. I think too often people see sadness as a bug that needs fixing. It's okay to be sad, and then you eventually stop being sad.

Closely related to this is another lesson I learned from my dad on not what to do. He's Willy Loman levels of optimistic. Thousands of times I've heard him go on and on about how great the day was, how much progress is happening at work, how the next big breakthrough is over the next hill. But as his child growing up, I badly needed him to occasionally say, "today didn't go well. X rejected our offer and Y isn't working so we have to start over on that one. But it's okay because these days happen and tomorrow might be better." To this date I'm still struggling with the reality that life, by design, has bad days, and that's fine.

<comment><USER7> My son is a crybaby. I get that emotions are valid, etc, but he cries when he loses at video games, when he gets an answer wrong, when he doesn't get picked to answer a question at school, when someone gets the book he wanted before he does.

We have tried everything and he's old enough but won't stop crying. I'm ready to just start spanking him every time he cries and to tell him that it's not okay to just cry whenever he doesn't get his way. It's getting to the point where he is far too old to be acting this way and I'm at my wits end.

<comment><USER8> Spanking has no positive benefit and is essentially child abuse. There is no legitimate reason to strike a child.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's sad to me that the social discourse on gender has become so combative. I think many people on all sides of the debate feel like feminism is a zero-sum movement, where the way to raise women up is to tear men down.

In practice, I feel like gender inequality can hurt both men and women in different ways. More gender equality allows _everyone_ more freedom to choose their own path in life and express their true selves without being forced into a set of stereotypical molds.

<comment><USER10> Its not so much as zero-sum but essentially schizophrenic.

On one side we have a culture of extreme sexual liberation, with the media, hookup culture, and the porn industry, and on the other side we have the yes- means-yes, firings for touching a women's back (Garrison Keillor), special legal proceedings for sexual assault accusers, ect.

How is anyone supposed to navigate a culture as complex as this?

<comment><USER11> Just want to point out that this is a misuse of the word schizophrenic; if you are going to link extreme swings to a psychological disorder, the one you're likely looking for is bipolar. Simplifying it, schizophrenia is when you see and hear things that aren't there.

<comment><USER12> Foucault would politely disagree; he used "schizophrenic" (literally, "a mind split into pieces") to describe the way that (post)modern society uses symbols and signs to point at cultural features, without actually understanding how those cultural features interact. In such a society, the signs themselves, and they way in which they chain into each other, become the primary meanings, replacing the cultural features entirely.

The parent reasonably points out two families of sign-chains and sketches how they conflict by emphasizing how the signs espouse conflicting opinions on male sexuality.

<comment><USER11> Foucault would probably disagree for more reasons than that; specificity and certitude in regards to psychiatric illnesses or how they are described wasn't exactly something he jived with

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've cried occasionally in recent years through laughter but never through sorrow. Mid 40s now but I have few recollections of crying through sorrow since I was a child - all brought on either by the breakup of a relationship or the death of a grandparent.

I suspect I'd probably keep my crying to myself if I had a reason to, which seems to go against the norm on the internet. On reddit in particular, people can't seemingly wait to announce their tears over one thing or another. It's like a competition as to who is the most emotional. Part of me thinks "Good on you, I wish I was that emotional", the other part of me thinks they're crying out for attention.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. I'm not very emotional. I've nearly cried once in my adult life and that was at a funeral for someone close. I don't think I'm missing much but I'm sure people will contend I don't know what I'm missing, oh well.

Reddit is a very bad place to go for a picture resembling "reality for normal people". The format of the website is very conducive to people trying to one- up each other with their conformance to whatever things are popular at the time and that gets divorced from reality really quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been saying for awhile that we need to work against the stigma of crying. Sure, sobbing because your idea isn't chosen at the office probably isn't going to get you anywhere but that's not what I'm talking about. When we're sad, we should allow ourselves _and each other_ the space to be sad and if that means crying then we should do so.

Replace "crying" with "pooping" and see how senseless the stigma becomes. You don't need to do it in public but only bad things happen when you try to prevent it. It's a perfectly normal physiological process.

What makes the stigma even more odd is that we accept it when we see a strong male character crying in a movie or on TV. On the surface it was absurd when Tom Hanks was crying over losing "Wilson" yet we understood it, and related to it. In his isolation-induced mental state, he had lost a loved one. There was no shame in that. Would we think the same if our co-worker choked up when describing how his cat had just died?

</comment><comment><USER16> I found out my mom died while I was at work, age 37, after a short illness (I was going to see her the next week), and although I generally kept it together that day, at one point, while talking to one of my staff on the phone, I just completely lost it. I think I cried in a way I hadn't ever before (maybe I've had a fortunate life). What was oddest to me was that I couldn't control it at all, but I was still able to think and even had a conversation with them over Slack while this was happening.

<comment><USER17> I'm sorry for your loss. I still remember when my dad died too, I was about 21 at the time and got a phone call that my dad was taken by an ambulance. I was at work and jumped into a cab, I arrived at the ER and they would not let me see him directly, told me they need to talk to me and my family in a separate room. They tried to cushion it but broke it to us eventually. That uncontrollable sobbing in front of the hospital, some strangers were hugging and trying to console me, feels like a natural response to personal tragedy. I am in my 40s and rarely cry but if I could I'd do, it's such a cathartic feeling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was listening to the NYT Daily podcast yesterday and they were talking about the Soleimani funeral and how Khamenei voice cracked and openly cried while delivering a prayer. I thought that was pretty amazing and rare for a world leader, especially a strong man type.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't really cry. I don't know how to.

Don't get me wrong - I get choked up, I get teary. I'm actually rather easily emotional - any tear-jerker movie will get to me.

But once I have the emotion, I don't know how to let it out. I WANT to. When I look at my wife and female friends, they all occasionally have a good cry as an emotional outlet, and while whatever prompted that is bad, the cry itself is a good outlet. They can feel better for having done it. But me? I just feel like all the emotions are stuck and I'm clogged up.

I'm not consciously fighting it, thinking I have to protect my manhood. While others being around does make it worse, I can't have this kind of release in private either. I don't know how much is subconscious and how much is the fact that I've spent 4+ decades NOT crying and I just don't know how to.

I don't strive for the "manly weep" that the article describes - I want to be able to all out bawl and just let this out.

<comment><USER20> Almost the exact same story here. I'm in my mid 30's, and the last time I cried was when I was a teenager, aside from also tearing up during some movies. Definitely not like I'm fighting it, I just don't know how.

Case in point, my father passed away rather suddenly on Christmas Eve -- just two weeks ago today. We weren't super close, but I do have fond memories of him. I haven't cried once. When I was informed of his death by my brother, who was tearing up as he told me, I literally just said "Damn..." and then drove around for a few hours aimlessly thinking. It seems like I should, like I'm SUPPOSED to cry, to the point where I feel like something's wrong with me because I haven't. Now I'm concerned that weeks or months from now I'll end up being triggered by something in an inopportune public place and just start bawling. But who knows?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The last two times that I've cried were both at a funeral of close family members. That was 2 years and ~10 years ago, I believe. I don't remember any other instances (maybe when I was a little kid, but I don't remember). When I say 'cried', I mean.. there were tears on my face. I wasn't screaming and crying manically etc.

Why cry, anyway? Unless someone dies or is extremely ill, everything else seems tolerable to me.

As someone that have extensively studied history and evolutionary biology, I know exactly how good life is for me (and for many people, really). There's absolutely no reason to cry or feel sad about anything, especially things beyond my control.

Right now, we are connected through an online forum from our homes. It's just amazing! We got transportation, we can visit other countries, we have freedom (of some sort), some of us are in great physical shape, financially free, etc., we got running water, we got all possible foods from each corner of the world, we got infinite entertainment, etc. etc.

I don't want to offend anyone, but when I see a person that's not satisfied based on these things alone (sanitary, water, food, not that many active wars), that's a person that has no idea about the history of our species. This is life on the easiest mode ever recorded. Cherish it.

<comment><USER22> TBH I'm super happy to live in a world where someone is crying based on things unrelated to basic survival. I want to actively work to a world where everyone's lowest low point of life is something I would consider just a minor inconvenience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hello. I am a man. I cry.

And it's not always at the right time or the right amount. I'm a person who buries his feelings, but they can't help but come out. I used to bury them deeply, and didn't cope with them at all. This was seriously unhealthy and as a result, my mental health suffered.

Then I learned how to cope some, and things got better. The more I coped with my feelings instead of burying them, the more I cried. That's not to say I cry all the time, but if a song hits me the right way, or even a good dance routine on World of Dance or some other show catches my heart the right way, I'm crying. Not just weeping, but holding back deep sobs. Those deep sobs are an overreaction, of course.

Why do I have to fight deep sobs at something as simple as a touching dance routine? I think it's because I have a LOT going on in my life, some of them quite troubling. Serious health issues in my family which have altered our life significantly, and will cause damage for years to come- for a life time for my daughter and I. My wife is dying and doesn't have much time left. And while I try to be brave for her, she knows how much it troubles me- despite that I have a firm hope for the future and I know it'll all be okay in the end- it still troubles me. For her sake I try to hold back my tears, but this backfires. What was a suppressed weep here and a stifled weep there is suddenly gushing forth right in the middle of a less serious discussion! It's not the right time.

Why do these inopportune things happen? Because I've not learned to be okay with crying. If I could manage to be okay with having many smaller sessions of crying, at the right times, then these outbursts of crying wouldn't be there. As it is I hold them back enough that they'll eventually come out in a more dramatic scream sobbing fit that lasts several minutes and usually leaves me without a voice for a week.

Weeping isn't manly. Weeping isn't for women. Weeping is for humans.

Hello. I am a human. I cry.

</comment><comment><USER24> I cry less and less as I age:

Teens? All the time. Perhaps monthly or even weekly at times.

20s? Less so, but more intensely. Perhaps every six months on average.

30s? Only twice in two years, and I'm a 32-year-old male now.

Those times were basically weeping, and I'd thought I'd hit rock bottom in a mental health/depression context. Maybe I had, but life got much, much worse after that. The interesting thing however, is that somewhere along the line I lost the ability to cry. I'd want to cry, but I couldn't anymore.

Haven't been able to for over a year now. It's like when you hit what you think is the bottom, you drop through to the basement. I hesitate to say it's an unfeeling basement—if anything it's more extreme feelings of despair—but it's certainly one where for whatever reason, crying no longer exists.

When things were really bad recently, I'd look in a mirror and just see this tearless dry laugh or heave of despair. Wanted to cry, but it's like the emotional pain or stress or anxiety was too high to allow it.

My best friend and I saw Joker during the midst of all this, and then we went home to make dinner after. It disturbed him a little when I nailed emulating the laugh without even trying, the first time. Usually I'm the one that can't do voices to save my life, and he's the one who can do anything. He couldn't do the Joker laugh no matter how much he tried.

My theory is I had already experienced the aforementioned feeling in the mirror. I unwittingly had practice. You have to be either a really good actor, or seriously hurting to emulate that laugh correctly. It's a laugh because the tears are dry for some reason.

That said, I'm sure despair can go far deeper still, and I really hope to never experience that.

-

It could be that crying is like a muscle. Perhaps it's a developed emotional mechanism that—when used appropriately—is beneficial to emotional well-being. However, like any muscle it can atrophy if it isn't used frequently enough, or lacks in sufficient nutrition.

Maybe crying can only happen when conditions are right. If things get too bad, or you're too worn down, you lose the ability to do so.

Perhaps crying doesn't happen because depression in combination with stress or anxiety are the primary reason for the despair. I'd probably cry immediately for the death of a loved one, for example.

Whatever the case, that's my take on it. Everyone's different and likely has their own reasons why they cry or don't cry. As the article points out, societal factors of course play an outsized role as well.

-

Disclaimer: Wrote this simply for the exercise of it, to explore the topic. Not a plea for help or anything, I'm fine. Joker was a flawed yet excellent film that explored some serious mental health topics, and I dislike the notion that it somehow had a violent or anarchic message. Quite obviously the contrary in my opinion.

<comment><USER25> I'm 34, male. I feel like I just _feel less_ as I age, both positive and negative. No crying, less anger, but also less giddy joy, less vivid imagination. When I was a child or teenager I could read a book and _be_ the character. Now I'm just reading a book.

<comment><USER26> I felt this right up until I have a kid. I'm like a mopey teenager again. Movies and tv regularly make me tear up etc. I feel the overwhelming rush and excitement I used to get from travel or goal achievement all over. I think the phenomenon that you're describing is basically we get used to the way things are so the emotional highs and lows are sort of expected. When we're young everything is new. It takes a big change and breaking your pattern to get out of that.

<comment><USER27> I agree with this. Kids spark a new sense of purpose and being.

A close friend and family member lost a 6 month old baby late last year through no fault of their own. Little guy slept so deep he stopped breathing.

Being so close to such a truly gut wrenching loss gives me a new perspective everyday.

The last time I had something even remotely like that was when a family member was scheduled to be in the Twin Towers, on the top floor, the morning of 9/11/2001\. Through a total fluke, this person didn't go to work that day. Odd, because he was the focus of this meeting and really should have been there - rather, he decided to hang out with his kids as he had been traveling too much. He's living on borrowed time and admits that every September.

All this to say - the worst part of modern technology and society is the ability to escape from reality, in my opinion.

You, your kids, and the rest of your loved ones will be dead one day. Probably when you dont expect it.

Putting the phone down and spending valuable time with them is the best decision you can make at any point in your day.

<comment><USER26> I completely agree. As silly as it sounds because it ended up being a false alarm I was in Hawaii during the ballistic missile scare. That sort of fear and then coming out on the other side, followed by having a kid 2 years later, has given me a totally different and much better perspective on life. I try and remember every day what really matters and it usually isn't what many of us usually give our time to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There's a phrase that macho men should start telling each other ASAP:

"Cry like a man!"

(This would mean to cry openly, deeply, and bravely, since a great many sorrows require good grieving and crying is a healthy outlet for grief. Crying is much less damaging to others and to oneself than other regrettably-common male outlets for grief, such as getting drunk and/or domestic violence.)

I hope one day crying by men becomes more acceptable to society. Life is often painful. Grieving is often necessary.

</comment><comment><USER29> Strange timing of this article.. [https://apnews.com/14792cc1d7f73ffec8f8c425b73b44fb](https://apnews.com/14792cc1d7f73ffec8f8c425b73b44fb)

</comment><comment><USER30> One the pillars of western masculinity, the Iliad, is replete with the tears of heroes. Men -- sometimes quite violent and aggressive men -- have historically felt quite free to use tears to express their anxiety and grief.

"Agamemnon shed tears as it were a dark-running stream or cataract on the side of some sheer cliff."

[https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6812.iii-4-the-l...](https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6812.iii-4-the- language-of-tears)

</comment><comment><USER31> I can call spirits from the manly weep.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is no place to discuss masculinity.

</comment><comment><USER33> I haven't cried in a decade. Since I attended the last family funeral. Before that, it was probably another decade. What are feelings.

<comment><USER34> The decode of sad feelings into binary is 10101011111101000101010101000000001011111112

<comment><USER34> which is a shame since 2 definitely makes most logic sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've never seen a problem with crying, although I don't cry easily. Stub my toe? No reason to cry. I had to suddenly euthanize one of my dogs on new years eve and I cried like a baby.

One thing I have noticed though is that I can cry about a situation and then I'm good to go. My wife on the other hand will cry off and on for days. Maybe the no crying thing came out of the typical need to get things done after whatever crying situation occurred?

</comment><comment><USER36> Life is suffering. We cry because someone convinced us it's not. Fairy tales are just that. Read deep into history for perspective.

We're at the 100th anniversary of the Spanish Flu that happened right after WWI. If we were living 100 years ago, we still have Prohibition, mass bank failures, the Great Depression and WWII to look forward to before mid-century.

Be thankful you aren't in a trench.

<comment><USER37> most of those problems were self-inflicted

<comment><USER36> >most of those problems were self-inflicted

Sure, it's the fault of the 18 year old draftee getting shelled in a trench for 4 straight days. It's the fault of the farmer who lost his life savings because a bank shut down. It's the fault of the young factory worker that Hitler decided to invade Poland. Self inflicted by whom exactly? Maybe you should reevaluate that statement.</comment></comment></comment>


Programming from the Ground Up Book - <AUTHOR> http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/pgubook/ <comment><USER2> If you like the book, you also might enjoy my old article series on IBM:

[http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/search/searchResults.jsp?s...](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/search/searchResults.jsp?searchType=1&searchSite=dW&searchScope=dW&query=jonathan+Bartlett&Search=Search)

Covers various things including PPC assembly language, PS3 assembly language, using high-level programming techniques in low-level languages, and other fun stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really love this book, wish more books were like this. I can also recommend: [http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Pr...](http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Principles/dp/026214087X)

</comment><comment><USER4> I first learnt how system calls transition from user space to kernel space when I read this book. Till then I had not understood the mechanism, though I knew what software interrupt is.

</comment><comment><USER5> Help! I can't find the book itself...

<comment><USER3> It's in the download area.

<http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/pgubook/>

Or if you prefer the dead tree version:

[http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Ground-Up-Jonathan- Bartlet...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Ground-Up-Jonathan- Bartlett/dp/0975283847)

<comment><USER5> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> thanks! this looks great. two birds one stone.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very nice, but it would be cooler if the title was

"Ground Up Programming Book" ;)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I thought it's about a book called "Ground Up"</comment></comment>


Freelancers and remote workers, what's your favourite environment to work? - <AUTHOR> If you are free to work from anywhere, where do you like to go? Curious to know any good spots! <comment><USER2> I think a disclaimer is needed: ellyot works for ellyot.com "Find beautiful workspaces anywhere for a few hours or a day".</comment>


Viewing the Brain as an Ecosystem Rather than as a Computer - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblog.com/44329/making-temporary-changes-to-brain-could-speed-up-learning/

<comment><USER2> Discussion on slashdot: [http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/04/14/0036219/Temporary...](http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/04/14/0036219/Temporary- Brain-Changes-Lead-to-Accelerated-Learning)</comment>


Why Starbucks actually helps mom and pop coffeehouses (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2007/12/dont_fear_starbucks.single.html <comment><USER2> Awesome. Money quote:

> _Hyman received the expected news that the company was opening up next to > one of his stores. But instead of panicking, he decided to call his friend > Jim Stewart, founder of the Seattle 's Best Coffee chain, to find out what > really happens when a Starbucks opens nearby. "You're going to love it," > Stewart reported. "They'll do all of your marketing for you, and your sales > will soar." The prediction came true: Each new Starbucks store created a > local buzz, drawing new converts to the latte-drinking fold. When the lines > at Starbucks grew beyond the point of reason, these converts started > venturing out—and, Look! There was another coffeehouse right next-door! > Hyman's new neighbor boosted his sales so much that he decided to turn the > tactic around and start targeting Starbucks. "We bought a Chinese restaurant > right next to one of their stores and converted it, and by God, it was doing > $1 million a year right away," he said._

The article was written in 2007. The closing sentences seem a bit prophetic:

> _" You can't do better than a cup of coffee for profit. It's insanity. A cup > of coffee costs 16 cents. Once you add in labor and overhead, you're still > charging a 400 percent markup—not bad! Where else can you do that?" Until > Americans decide they need to pay four bucks a pop every morning for a > custom-baked, designer-toast experience, probably nowhere._

Lo and behold, $4 toast is a thing:

[http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/toast-story- latest-...](http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/toast-story-latest- artisanal-food-craze-72676)

<comment><USER3> $4 toast isn't _nearly_ as good a business as $4 coffee unless they succeed in making the toast literally, medically habit-forming. That's Starbucks' entire business model: ensure that a caffeinated beverage is part of your morning ritual (afternoon is a nice bonus, but they make a stupendous portion of revenue before 9 AM), get you to do it with the same regularity as brushing your teeth, and ensure that there is a pleasant green priestess very physically convenient when you feel the need to make your obeisance to the caffeine gods.

(Says a habitual coffee drinker who came to the habit late in life, and who is very happy he's moderately dependent on a substance which is highly unlikely to kill him, as opposed to being more-than-moderately dependent on any of the number of substances which would stand substantial risk of killing him.)

<comment><USER4> << Says a habitual coffee drinker who came to the habit late in life, and who is very happy he's moderately dependent on a substance which is highly unlikely to kill him >>

Coffee will do more than not kill you; it was recently found to confer a "reduced risk of dying from heart disease and certain other causes"!

<< Compared with abstainers, nonsmokers who drank a cup of coffee a day had a 6 percent reduced risk of death, one to three cups an 8 percent reduced risk, three to five cups a 15 percent reduced risk, and more than five cups a 12 percent reduced risk. There was little difference whether they drank caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee. The association persisted after controlling for age, alcohol consumption, B.M.I. and other health and diet factors. >>

[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/coffee-tied-to- lowe...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/coffee-tied-to-lower-risk- of-dying/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most of my coffee shop experience has been in lower Manhattan, well after the publication date of the OP...but anecdotally, the premise seems sound to my biased mind. I never had any hesitation plunking $3-$4 for a iced coffee at Blue Bottle/Bluebird/MUD/Abraco (the best place in the East Village IMHO) because I would think to myself, "Well, it's about $2.50 in Starbucks, which is the Walmart of coffee"

<comment><USER6> In the EV, make sure you throw in 'Ninth Street Esrpesso' (multiple locations: 9th and C, 10th and B, and a couple in midtown), 'Boxkite' to your rotation (St. Marks btw. A & 1st), as well as 'Van Leeuwen' (7th btw. 1st & 2nd). On the west side, there's also 'Ground Support' (W. Broadway btw. Spring & Broome), and in Tribeca there's 'Kaffe 1668' (Greenwich St. btw. Murray & Warren).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think another way Starbucks helps local coffee shops is by creating an "identity outlet" for the anti-yuppie, anti-corporate crowd. I have friends who never go to Starbucks, and make sure to point that out at every opportunity. So the way they act out that part of their identity is by going to a local coffee shop instead.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how this works in places that are much more spread out than NYC or San Francisco. I live in Phoenix and there are drive-thru Starbucks at what seems like every intersection but it seems like mom and pop shops are pushed out of this equation here. One popular local shop closed down this year after a drive-thru Starbucks opened up in the same plaza. People here are definitely more in line with corporate (/more convenient?) businesses than the little guys, so maybe that has something to do with it.

<comment><USER9> I recently found maybe 6 "third place" style cafes (for laptop camping) in the entire Phoenix valley that weren't chains. Years ago, IIRC, I found none open after 5pm.

To have "local culture" you need to get people out of their cars, houses, offices. Tellingly, the best cafe I found was next to a church and affiliated somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10>
        > you'll never see discounts or punch cards at Starbucks

That's funny, I just filled my Starbucks punch card today and got a free Xmas coffee (UK).

</comment><comment><USER11> I think coffee is vastly overpriced compared to Europe. I always drink gallons of the stuff whilst in Europe for several reasons, not the least of which is that it's better over there. The experience is nicer. I have a favourite small European country where I can literally buy two espressos or two cappuccinos for the price of one here. I grew up in Europe and have always preferred the European idea of cafes to the North American variety. I can also usually get a decent meal in a European cafe, albeit a one or two course meal. One can still smoke outside at the tables in quite a bit of Europe. North Americans have their knickers in a twist over smokers.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure what the issue is with North Americans having "their knickers in a twist."

It's a proven health issue, even if the smoke is inhaled second-hand. I'd say it's more of a responsibility for smokers in general: if you want to smoke, I won't judge, but please respect me in turn and understand that you may be near people who would like not to be getting the smoke second-hand.

Again, not sure what the issue is.

<comment><USER13> Coffee & cigarettes go hand in hand in some places, just a cultural difference they might miss here in NA

<comment><USER14> They're both stimulants, of course they go hand in hand! ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A rising tide lifts all boats

</comment><comment><USER16> Until 2012 there was an intersection in Vancouver with Starbucks on 2 of the 4 corners and a different coffee shop on the third corner. So even Starbucks knows this.

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kitty- corner-...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kitty-corner- vancouver-starbucks-closes-1.1163030)

</comment><comment><USER17> In Moscow (Russia) there are two major coffee shop chains: Coffee House and Shokoladnitsa, Starbucks being a rare and expensive beast. And you know what, these two are always next to each other, like 20m nearby or on opposite sides of a street. I suppose they understand this 'overflow' phenomenon perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is funny. There are several coffee shops in my town that you can see while sitting in Starbucks. I was super confused till I went out and tried them all. I still go to Starbucks since they are cheaper and better tasting then the rest but I can see the logic.

</comment><comment><USER19> They helped a local 30-year-old coffeehouse by buying them and their neighbor at above market rate. Backed by illegal secret tax deals, as it turned out.

</comment><comment><USER20> Huh. I wonder. I can believe that Starbucks actually help nearby shops, but I bet it depends on the neighbourhood.</comment>


Nelson woman delighted after Apple unlocks iPhone of late husband - <AUTHOR> https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/nelson-woman-delighted-after-apple-unlocks-iphone-late-husband-giving-access-precious-family-memories-me-and-mahli-were-pretty-much-in-tears <comment><USER2> I suspect that Apple sent them the iCloud backup contents, not the iPhone contents, and that this article reports this story poorly.

<comment><USER3> I hope they start encrypting them properly at some point, on device, key derived from Apple ID password etc.

<comment><USER4> They can't because it's obvious they have a secret FISA order preventing them to. The recent iMessages in the Cloud shows this: messages are end to end encrypted in iCloud using a separate, unique key that is only stored on your devices... and this key is uploaded to your iCloud account if you have backup enabled. No choice.

This is after the original version, got pulled from the beta suddenly with no reason and no widely reported bugs.

The design of this irrational system only makes sense when a 3 letter agency saw it, and got FISA to compel Apple to key escrow.

<comment><USER5> _it's obvious they have a secret FISA order preventing them to._

How is that obvious? And how a court do this? What would be the legal basis?

<comment><USER6> National security. As it always is.

<comment><USER5> That doesn't really mean anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article misses what I really wanted to hear - how did they unlock the device?

<comment><USER8> It's possible to unlock an iPhone's passcode protection with its iCloud account, if the iPhone user has allowed that.

Edit: I think I'm wrong and misremembering.

<comment><USER9> what setting is that under?

<comment><USER10> Ditto, I need to make sure it's off...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a poorly ignorantly written article from a non-tech point of view. Respectfully.

</comment><comment><USER12> I hope someone informed her on recommended backup practices. Imagine going through all that trouble and then losing the data again because of hardware failure.

</comment><comment><USER13> If the wife inherits the properties of the defunct husband... isn't that what is expected thing from Apple? Same as any other inherited property

<comment><USER14> No inheritance doesn't compel Apple to unlock that inherited property. Imagine it like a safe. You might inherit a safe but there is no obligation on the manufacturer to help you unlock it.

<comment><USER15> but what good is a safe without a key. esp when the only way to open it is through the manufacturer

<comment><USER16> To push the analogy, if you need a code to open your safe, but forgot to put the code in your will, is the manufacturer required to provide you a master key?

<comment><USER15> oh well yea, you've got a point there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What about a password reset to the mans non apple email address?

<comment><USER18> Yeh ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Whoa, did not expect this. Has Apple faltered in its no-compromises approach to privacy?

<comment><USER20> The dead have no privacy rights.

<comment><USER21> Incorrect here in New Zealand. The dead have less privacy rights but not zero. In particular, if the information relates to another person and may breach their privacy it should be kept private. Seems complicated.

[https://privacy.org.nz/further-resources/knowledge- base/view...](https://privacy.org.nz/further-resources/knowledge- base/view/220)

<comment><USER20> >if the information relates to another person and may breach their privacy

Then it is the living person's privacy rights which are in force, not the dead's.

<comment><USER21> As per the link, parts of the Act apply to the dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This entire thing is very eerie. Someone might rumor that you have had argument with some female non-employee yesterday in a bar and next day you could be unemployed. Employers are now frequently rolling out judgements if employees don't conform to their world view even _outside_ of work. An employer unilaterally decides if unlocking a phone for person X fits in to their fency and whims. Sure, you can say that vote with your wallet but the bigger question is why we as _citizens_ should accept such unabashed power bestowed to any entity to roll out decisions that should be made by court of laws with due process.</comment>


What Goes Up: A platformer that ignores gravity - <AUTHOR> https://lonebot.itch.io/what-goes-up <comment><USER2> Brilliant! I followed you on itch.io. Great idea. What did you use to develop it?

<comment><AUTHOR> This isn't mine, and this isn't a Show HN. ;)

I bet the author doesn't know about HN, although he seems like the kind up people that should be here.</comment></comment>


A boring topic that I'm excited/fascinated by: cement - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1184978015983296513 <comment><USER2> A few observations: I was watching a documentary on building a Very Tall Building and the concrete pouring engineer (it's a thing) was standing up at 1000 feet directing the exact mix of cement to water, etc because that makes a huge difference in the strength, which matters a lot in 1000 foot buildings.

Another: one of the very first steps in human tech history was "mine limestone" (see The Knowledge). So many things come from lime!

</comment><comment><USER3> I find wood as a replacement for concrete - even for high-rise buildings - still more exciting, so I created a submission to showcase the subject:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21359347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21359347)</comment>


Show HN: YouFM - A new way to listen to music on Youtube - <AUTHOR> http://www.youfm.org/ <comment><USER2> Neat, I made <http://www.tubalr.com> about 2 years ago and have been working on it every since. It made its way onto Mashable, Techcrunch, and several other blogs this past Dec/Jan.

Something to keep in mind, eventually YouTube will start blocking certain videos from being played on your site. This took a while and mainly started happening when traffic picked up. Theres no good way to pickout blocked videos, heres a function I use to weed through some of the blocked videos: [https://github.com/cjstewart88/Tubalr/blob/master/app/assets...](https://github.com/cjstewart88/Tubalr/blob/master/app/assets/javascripts/main.js#L43)

Also, all of Tubalr's codes in github if you're interested: <http://www.github.com/cjstewart88/Tubalr>

Good Luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Has it really been two years? Tubalr was actually the inspiration for this. I really loved it, particularly the old UI (the new ones great too).

Thanks for the link to the js to avoid blocked youtube vids. It'll definitely be a lot of help.

<comment><USER2> Yup, Sept 12, 2010 will be the 2 year mark o_O

No prob, shoot me an email email@example.com if you need anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a service I would really like. There's also youtify[1], but neither work for me (with youtify Soundcloud works but not YouTube). The music simply never starts.

That's too bad because such a "music mode" is something I would love to see on YouTube. It's not that I constantly listen to music on YouTube, that would be a waste of bandwidth, but I use YouTube almost exclusively as a music/artist discovery platform, then I download the musics I like once and for all. But I would still appreciate a lot to be able to actually have a _working_ playlist/queue feature on YouTube, and also to be able to desactivate the video display (and download) to only keep the sound.

[1] <http://www.youtify.com/>

EDIT: I guess the best service of this type I've seen yet is <http://roll.io/> (which works for me on top of that). I was discussed on HN here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2665090>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hiding the video and letting users download the music or the video is against Youtube's TOS.

<comment><USER3> It's too bad that hiding the video is against YouTube's TOS. Most of the time the video is a single static image anyway.

About your second point, I didn't ask for "letting users download the music or the video", when I said that I download the music it can be from many sources, most of the time .zip or .rar files that the artists put on mediafire or some services like this.

<comment><USER4> But if you hide the video, YouTube has no way to show the ads it wants to show you.

<comment><USER3> Ah you're right. I didn't realize that because I'm using AdBlock+ so I don't see ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Love the idea! I mainly use YouTube to find interesting music, and this would (will?) make that easier.

The interface seems sketchy though. Sometimes clicking on a song in the results list doesn't do anything. Other times there's a little flash, but it doesn't switch to playing that song. Sometimes it selects the song and the video appears to load, but it doesn't actually start playing. In general, the UI is frustrating because it _looks_ clean and polished, but a gesture has the desired effect only about 75% of the time.

Another issue I found is that sometimes I get what seems to be the wrong video—it's not the song listed, and appears to be completely unrelated. Several times I got a video of somebody narrating a Dickens novel, and once an Asian game show of some kind. It could be wrong metadata on the YouTube side, but it happened often enough that I doubt it.

If you sort out these issues, this could be awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> The video not playing properly is an issue with the Youtube Chromeless player I used. I probably messed up the javascript somehow. I'll have it fixed when I implement the new UI.

The wrong video issue is simply the result of the first video result from youtube being wrongly tagged. I can't really do anything about it.

<comment><USER6> For the wrong video, maybe you can see the likes to dislike ratio? That would filter out lot of bad music too but I guess that's not what you want.

Another way is to use some API to look for the song title and duration, and match it with the duration of youtube video with +-10 seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Like the idea of having a Spotify-like UI for the vast amount of music on Youtube.

Not so much like the fact that it's pretty much Spotify's interface copied to the smallest detail.

<comment><USER8> I've never seen Spotify and thought it was just like iTunes, but with the controls at the bottom.

<comment><USER9> Pretty much that, and darker shades of grey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You may want to set cursor:pointer in your css. At first I didn't think I could click on a track to play it because it just showed the default cursor or, worse, a text-selector cursor.

</comment><comment><USER11> Brilliant. I listen to music on YouTube alot; this is something I've been looking for. Easy to use, very clean look.

As soon as you implement the playlist feature, I plan to use it.

One question: What sort of limits do you have on the searching? I have a song I listen to on YouTube and when I type in the song or artist, it doesn't come up.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm searching iTunes, and then searching youtube with the query "<song title> \- <artists name>" and then playing the first result.

Sometimes iTunes does not have a song, or the query doesn't return the correct video.

I'm trying to figure out a way to solve these cases, but haven't come up with a decent solution yet.

<comment><USER11> Ah, makes sense. The song isn't in iTunes; I recently requested that Apple add it to their database.

Thanks for the clarification. This site is awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Really cool. It would be really useful though if I could sort the results, for example, by album/track number. Seems like a REALLY useful service nonetheless. Congrats.

EDIT: Also, sometimes people combine multiple songs into one youtube video, for example <http://youtu.be/J0FawK4G_AY> They seem to show up in your player as only the first song. This is a lot more complicated then my first suggestion, but some sort of detection of that (and maybe the possibly _more_ common case of full album videos) would help save some confusion when users play one song and get another one for free. (BONUS!)

EDIT2: Also, allowing only one video for any given song has issues, for example, when the first result is a live video or otherwise bad quality. Maybe just a right click menu that lets you select "See alternate videos"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do the multiple videos thing in the next version.

<comment><USER12> Cool! Any thoughts on sorting (and possibly adding a bit more metadata to sort with)?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm looking for a good API to use that provides enough metadata. Spotify is probably a good choice. I'll add the sorting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Confusing UX. I assumed that "top 100 hits" button would give me the top 100 hits for my search term, rather than the search button only being implicit. The placeholder text is a bad position for instruction (as a rule, not just in this case) because it's gone when you are in need of the signpost of what to do.

</comment><comment><USER14> Earlier this year I had developed my own app to listen to music through YouTube because I was finding myself using YouTube to just listen to songs I wanted to hear: <http://www.deskamp.com>

With all these new YouTube music apps coming out recently you'd think 2012 is the year when YouTube reigns supreme for music listening.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have been looking for something like this for a long time. Youtube has pretty much all the music that I listen to but it's playlist handling is borderline unusable. Sometimes I wonder if this is something they do on purpose so users can not convert Youtube into a personal jukebox. Overall, great project and kudos to the developer!

</comment><comment><USER16> The UX is really good a nice to the eyes, some suggestions:

I searched for "The Who" and almost 90% of the songs weren't by The Who, but instead song titles with "who". "Bob Dylan" worked fine.

Please, add support for lyrics, that would be simply awesome, and something Grooveshark is lacking.

Some songs just don't play, not sure why.

The search box is like "broken", I can't select with the mouse.

But it's great!

<comment><AUTHOR> The search results are sometimes quite weird. For example I can search for "The Who" now and get all the songs for the artists. I'll change the iTunes API I use now to Spotify's (or Last.FM's) soon.

Sometimes if you click on a song before the javascript for the music player loads it doesn't work. I'll do my best to fix it soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cool, my last two web apps (<http://beepmunk.com> and <http://choruzz.com>) are somewhat similar to this.

I love the UI but search results can be improved IMO. Maybe you could utilize Last.fm API for search?

<comment><AUTHOR> I use Last.FM to find similar songs. It appears in the right sidebar when you play any song.

I didn't use Last.FM for the main search, because I couldn't get the album name directly from the keyword search (the JSON has the title and artist only). Getting the album name would require querying the API for each search result which again I tried but takes about 30 sec for the results to appear.

I am considering using Spotify's API though since iTunes gives strange results sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very cool! Is there a way to make the video larger if you want to actually view the video instead of just using the site as a music player?

Perhaps make the area below the video player clickable so that it makes the video appear in a larger area above the song list.

I am very impressed. Great work Ashraful!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot.

I finally decided to try my hand at coding and this is the result of about 2 weeks of learning. I decided to skip the tutorials and books and jumped straight into coding. The code's mess but it works and that's great.

I still have a lot to learn, but I do plan on adding three features:

1\. Have new searches not interrupt the current song. 2\. Make the video resizable. 3\. Add playlists. I actually asked a fellow HN-ers to help out with this because I don't think I'll be able to handle databases yet.

Glad you liked it.

<comment><USER19> I would also recommend hiding the auto-suggest right hand side bar until everything is loaded and then sliding it into view when ready. I suggest this for 2 reasons,

1\. I initially clicked the song and the first thing I noticed, before I the music played was the "this might take 90 seconds dialog" and I was ready to kill the tab thinking.

2\. Just the fact that it says this might take a long time, is a 'downer', its better to make that view visible when it is ready so that user doesn't have to ever know of the fact that you have a process that takes 90 seconds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you use the iPhone, YouTunes lets you do the same thing and create playlists for your favorite songs: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/youtunes- live/id519596476?mt=...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/youtunes- live/id519596476?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is cool.

Would be nice to know how popular a particular tune was, i.e. at minimum Youtube Views and preferably also Likes/Dislikes as columns so you could order by them.

This is useful for many reasons, e.g. someone recommended a band and you do not know the easiest way to get into it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Beautiful! I just wish there was a way to disable the video player on the bottom left, but seeing as how you're using youtube I don't see that being a possibility. Here's what I immediately love about this: no registration.

</comment><comment><USER23> Slick idea (providing it's legal), very nice interface not too dark, good balance, far better than what my 1992 html mind could dream up.

I tried some Bon Jovi tunes, every one I tried worked but Blaze of Glory, No. 34 on your list, odd.

Nice idea and site!

</comment><comment><USER24> The search delays get annoying. Have you thought about caching search results on the server? It seems that would be especially useful if everyone is listening to the same playlist (as is the case now.)

</comment><comment><USER25> Just a heads up, "view new releases" is misspelt as "view new realeases".

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice work ashraful. The interface looks great and is easy to use. Just one small suggestion for improvement: could you make the mouse cursor to be a pointer when hovering over the rows of videos?

</comment><comment><USER27> Nicely done, but I would love a separate column for the bitrage/quality of the music. Most of the music on YouTube is subpar bitrate, and music should usually be heard in decent quality. :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Nice app. But I suspect that this will draw more attention to the possibility of using YouTube as a music service and therefore increase the risk of these videos taken off YouTube.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nowadays almost all the music videos on Youtube are legal. Most of them are from VEVO's official channel. So the risk of them getting taken off youtube is quite low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I want technical details on how it works behind the scenes, plz :)

<comment><AUTHOR> It takes your search term and queries the iTunes API. Using the search results, the Youtube API is queried for the search term "<song name> \- <artist name>". The first video result is taken (it may or may not be the correct video but usually is).

The video is played using Youtube's Chromeless Player.

Similar results are displayed using Last.FM's API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Solid execution. Looks beautiful, easy to use. Works. Thumbs up.

</comment><comment><USER31> Neat idea!

I also made something similar that allows you to easily make playlists from YouTube videos: <http://instadj.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats really cool!

Is the code available somewhere? I'd love to take a look at how the search and the playlist thing works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> very cool and clean design. the only thing you need to change is that horrible scroller that you left untouched.

this will be perfect for you and will perfectly match the design: <http://jamesflorentino.github.com/nanoScrollerJS/>

edit: next to "time" column pls put the "# of views" -- this will help me discover whats popular in my search.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm not going to discuss technical stuff - I REALLY like top hits functionality. Well Done!

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra I type in cyrillic text: [барто готов] press enter and land on a blank, broken page.

</comment><comment><USER34> A friend did something a little similar with this site - www.ransomnotemusic.com

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm impressed! Works better than i expected. Excellent, thank you for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER36> Awesome idea, would be perfect if I could change the quality settings though.

</comment><comment><USER37> Nice to see a decent app designed by a fellow Bangladeshi on HN.

</comment><comment><USER38> I like the Spotify like interface. Good job. Looks neat.

</comment><comment><USER39> Nice, Ash! Coming with playlist functionality soon.

</comment><comment><USER40> This reminds me of songza from several years ago.

</comment><comment><USER41> couldn't get song to play from ipad2. everything else seemed to work, the search is surprisingly good, and I like the UI.

</comment><comment><USER42> How about full screen video for party mode?

</comment><comment><USER43> Needs a favicon ;) Very cool!

</comment><comment><USER44> This is genius

</comment><comment><USER45> Decent xcution, but rather slow :/

</comment><comment><USER46> The blatant theft of Spotify's look and feel makes me not want to use this service.

Screenshot of Spotify <http://i.imgur.com/Um0HM.png>

<comment><USER47> Never used Spotify before, but the screen shot you just posted looks just like iTunes to me.

<comment><USER48> Spotify and iTunes may have similar UI but this site and Spotify are identical. One can assume Spotify was inspired by the design of iTunes, since well, lets be honest, its how everybody now pictures their music players. This site on the other hand had done nothing new at all, its blatant theft of Spotify's interface.</comment></comment></comment>


BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2013/05/27/bittorrent-sync-is-a-dropbox-killer-or-maybe-much-more-than-that/ <comment><USER2> I looked at BTSync the other day when researching self-hosted Dropbox alternatives. It looks like a great product and so far beats the pants off the closest competitor, Seafile, for ease of install and use. I was really impressed.

But unfortunately it's not open source, so it comes down to an issue of trust --which, in the end, is the same issue with Dropbox and really the entire point of moving to self-hosted for me.

Do you trust BitTorrent to properly encrypt your data as they promise? To not send it to someone else on the sly? Etc. etc. I acknowledge the possibility of funny business is remote at best but it's one of those "on principle" things for me.

(Yes you could use another layer like Encfs or something before putting it in your BTSync/Dropbox folder but that's a pain and not really the point.)

<comment><USER3> Did you ever evaluate <http://owncloud.org/> ? I have never used it, but looked at briefly awhile back and it is open source.

<comment><USER4> From almost everyone I've heard that's tried it it's unfortunately extremely buggy.

<comment><USER5> Same here, did not hear very good things about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd say it could be troubling for dropbox. It's probably game over for <https://aerofs.com> though unless AeroFS drastically changes/pivots.

For dropbox, they do have some advantages. Bittorrent brings up thoughts of piracy. Dropbox doesn't have that reputation and would be much more acceptable in corporate environments. Additionally, Dropbox has integration with a lot of apps and I don't see that happening with BT Sync anytime soon. Web access to your files, versioning, etc.

Advantages of BTSync? Free. No limits. Files not stored on 3rd party servers. It's fast. Transferring large files with Dropbox is painful. BTSync is just getting started.

<comment><USER7> 1\. A service with the word "torrent" in it will never be adopted by a corporate entity. (edit: "typical" corporation. Technology companies don't count)

2\. You may be overestimating how much the average person cares about file storage size, 3rd party servers, or transferring large files.

<comment><USER8> If I was aspera or filesociety, I'd be rather worried.

I'm planning on using this to sync terrorbytes between london and LA. Why should I pay the ridiculous cost of a thinly wrapped rsync over UDP when I can have it for free? (the latency between the two means that the maximum throughput on tcp based protocols get about 2-3 megs a second tops)

I will be testing the throughput of torrentsync. Currently it appears to be painfully single threaded (it looks to be python)

<comment><USER9> You must have a frightening amount of data!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I consider "sync" to only be a feature of Dropbox. Its the absolute best way to get files into their cloud storage platform (as compared to something like uploading files manually via a web portal).

But I think the value of Dropbox is in their cloud storage platform itself. It is the platform that is responsible for integration into a bevy of mobile apps, backup, and many other useful tools.

In my opinion, BitTorrent is a feature that doesn't offer the value of a platform. This feature is super awesome for a select use-case (maybe moving my media library across all of my home devices), but its no Dropbox killer. Its not a full platform at its current state.

</comment><comment><USER11> It has a massive problem which Dropbox solves: the need for both computers to be on at the same time.

I have a laptop. I have a desktop. They are almost never on at the same time. With Dropbox this is _fine_ - the files go from one to the cloud, and then to the other when it's turned on.

With BTSync, this would mean that my files would never sync.

<comment><USER12> Exactly, this is the big issue that is never mentioned in the Forbes article nor the BT Sync docs. Maybe it's obvious in hindsight, but since they're comparing it to Dropbox and all...

However with the daemon running on a Linode instance or something like that, I suppose that's no longer a problem.

<comment><USER13> The same that distributed VCS systems liberated development from a single point of failure, this protocol allows any computer to become responsible of acting as "the always-on server". Now you can use a Dropbox-like thing paying someone else to do something much simpler: run an application to provide the service. Whoever provides the service can even offer redundant service very easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 1\. BT Sync needs to be open sourced and their security practices need to be peer reivewed

2\. No version control in BT Sync like Dropbox has - killer feature in Dropbox IMHO

<comment><USER15> Why does Sync deserve a security audit and Dropbox not? If anything I'd say Dropbox is the more risky, what with storing all your files on their own servers.

<comment><USER16> Because Dropbox is clearly untrustworthy, there's no need to audit it. BTSync is potentially trustworthy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How does this article share both of these statements?:

"BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That"

"Maybe Sync is not an out-and-out DropBox killer, but it does look likely to broaden the scope of what we understand by file storage and change what customers expect from file storage services"

So is it, or isn't it?

Praise to the BitTorrent folks in any event. I've been using Sync for a few weeks now and I've been pleased with its performance thus far. I'm debating whether I want to shut off Dropbox, but Dropbox still has several great features, versioning in particular.

<comment><USER18> The article's author cleverly avoids the shame of Betteridge's Law by simply leaving off the question mark, but alas the result is the same. And in that you find your answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hilarious article. "there is no need to _route through the cloud which can slow things down_ " wtf, no editorial oversight of tech material at Forbes? The rest is shit too.

<comment><USER20> When you put a file into a Dropbox-synced folder/directory, Dropbox first syncs the file to their cloud storage in AWS. Once that sync is _completed_ , Dropbox starts to sync to other devices. If you want to sync a large file, you must wait for the cloud sync to complete before it will start to copy it to other devices, which could take longer than copying with a flash drive.

I assumed that was the meaning behind the statement you selected.

<comment><USER21> That's true, but there is a special case if both computers are on the same LAN, the Dropbox client software will sync locally which is much faster.

<comment><USER22> Nope, even on LAN you have to wait until the file is on the server before the direct transfer starts.

<comment><USER21> Huh, never realized. Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wish they made this available as a backend for applications for state syncing. (Both mobile & desktop)

I always have desktop running somewhere that can be doing the more intensive backend processing.

</comment><comment><USER24> One thing I've wanted to do is access files remotely without downloading them (streaming/virtual drives, etc). Do any of these services allow that (BTsync, dropbox, aeroFS), or am I forced to download files before accessing them?

<comment><USER25> You can mount dropbox and a whole bunch of other cloud services as a filesystem using ExpanDrive - google drive and box support coming next

www.expandrive.com

(I am the author)

<comment><USER26> I use a competitor of yours called WebDrive.

Can you discuss how you may be better then they are? I am actually a bit unhappy with them, as I occasionally have strange behavior where a file refuses to upload, or the cache sometimes quits updating. However, my version is a few years old, so perhaps they fixed these issues. I have thought of buying their new version, but I am open to hearing why I should switch.

<comment><USER25> I think it is an all around better product. No need to tweak settings to make it work. It's generally faster, licenses are cross platform, we support more protocols. It's less expensive. We care :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So I understand that data transfer is not done via online services, but can BitTorrent Sync be used entirely locally?

For example, I have a desktop at home, one at work, and my laptop.

I would love to have my music collection available all the time on my work desktop, but I don't want to waste the bandwidth at the office.

My ideal use case would be that while I am at home, my laptop and home desktop sync across the LAN, when I get to work, my laptop and office desktop sync.

Does BitTorrent Sync allow that?

<comment><USER28> You want to control the topology of your own network? Not really.

BitTorrent Sync allows for LAN syncing, yes. When a direct connection between hosts is not possible, it will use a third-party server as first a matchmaking server for NAT hole punching. If that fails, it will route all sync traffic through the third party server acting as a relay. (These third parties are controlled by the BitTorrent Sync developers)

You may need to have some way of killing the btsync daemon on your home machine if you want to sync directly from your laptop to your office machine.

<comment><USER29> Looks like you can opt-out of the relay service. From the very bottom of the article:

Traffic Relay ... You can opt out of this, but it could result in peers not being able to network with each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Any clue why their previous undertaking, btapp.js, disappeared into oblivion? Aren't the apps listed on <http://torque.bittorrent.com/labs/> incredibly useful? (They forgot about Linux, so I didn't even have a chance to run these things)

</comment><comment><USER31> BitTorrent has orders of magnitude more potential for the enterprise use case than for the consumer use case.

</comment><comment><USER32> I would love to see something like this that allows you to serve a website on localhost to specific people. The browser control could be embedded so you could control how resources are loaded (through torrent instead of normal URL).

<comment><USER33> $ cd /home/somedir $ python -m SimpleHTTPServer

You'd still have to open up ports on any firewall you're running, and there's no user access control, but it's a quick way to serve up a directory over a LAN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> imho there are only two killers out there btsync & seafile.

\- btsync has the ease of use that seafile doens't have

\- seafile has optional file versionning that btsync doesn't have

<comment><USER35> Checkout AeroFS, it's P2P, it can do versioning with the team server and has a pretty nice UI.

<comment><USER34> java signup magic ? i don't know man

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Can this be used as a plugin-free Bittorent Sync alternative?

<https://github.com/peer5/sharefest>

</comment><comment><USER37> Until there's a longer security+correctness track record (and maybe not even then), it's too soon to rely on this closed-source software - <http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/18434-source-code/>

</comment><comment><USER38> I've looked around for a mobile Bittorrent Sync app, but haven't found one. If they did have one, that would make me switch for sure.

</comment><comment><USER39> BTSync won't be a Dropbox killer until it has unlimited version history.

<comment><USER40> My guess is that it will be as a plugin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Although this may be a little blunt, I don't see how a company that caters to media theft is going to compete with Dropbox. Although Dropbox intentionally lets people register many accounts to they can do more or less the same thing. (Ever know someone with 20 dropbox accounts?)

This is the 800 lb gorilla in the cloud storage room. Providers like Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive, GDrive dont want to be cast in the light of Megaupload or BitTorrent, lest their business come under scrutiny. Hence they keep their data caps fairly low so you can't store a DVD on their service.

I dont use torrent software because Im not interesting in illegal content. I dont think regardless of their traffic stats BTSync is going to matter much to mainstream users.

</comment><comment><USER42> I pay for dropbox for dedicated storage. it will be there. How long until the first stories of people not being able to get their files back out of BT Sync. Also they don't talk about the hidden cost, that I assume you have to use a lot more of your HD to store other people's stuff and a load of your bandwidth.

Remember this system works by using all the clients as the server farm. And for that kind of system you need more redundancy than normal, so you're probably paying many X gb in harddrive space what you are storing on it. Want to store 10gb on it? got 30 or 40gb to spare? if not, stick with trusty reliable no hidden costs dropbox

<comment><USER43> You shouldn't make ridiculous claims like that without knowing the facts. That isn't how BT Sync works at all, have you even tried it?</comment></comment>


Giant squid caught on video for the second time - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/science/giant-squid-cephalopod-video.html <comment> lota-putty If you're just looking for footage:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqim34DvCrs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqim34DvCrs)

<comment><USER3> very neat to see that they swim 'forward' with their tentacles grouped together as one. freaky

<comment><USER4> What I also find a kind of 'freaky' is that it touches the object and then feels it is attached to something and says 'nope!'. And it is gone.

Ofcourse this is no proof but to me it shows some kind of intelligence.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't say this behavior is part of intelligence, it's probably the first thing nature crafted in any life form. Unfamiliarity => move.

<comment><USER6> Maybe this one specific behaviour doesn't convince you of intelligence, but squids, octopi, and cuttlefish are among the most intelligent cephalopods, which are in turn the most intelligent known invertebrates.

<comment><USER5> Oh, I'm well aware of their prowess, it's been taped and discussed (also many more animals have more cognitive abilities than were thought before). I was just discussing this particular reflex/behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if it's possible for somewhere in the deep ocean for an environment to exist with the perfect availability of resources for one of these squid to grow without bound, until they reach a size that can threaten ships.

<comment><USER8> We humans are too hypocritical to let that happen, we conserve other species only as long as they remain submissive. The moment we feel threatened by them (think giant squids sinking ships) we start killing them off.

<comment><USER9> Hypocrisy is an interesting synonym for self-preservation.

<comment><USER10> It's hardly self-preservation. More like a first world problem/solution: my transport structures are not hard enough to withstand squid attacks - <USER2> clearly need to kill the squids.

<comment><USER11> That is exactly self-preservation. At least for those on the transport structure.

<comment><USER10> If you're already on that ship, sure. As a planned action... you can be somewhere else instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How giant it actually is?

<comment><USER13> The size of a small boat. Comparable to a whale.

<comment><USER14> A small whale. Less than half the length of a blue whale, and less than 1% the mass.

<comment><USER13> Most whales are smaller than a blue whale...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You people may be thinking about thinking about intelligence. I am mostly thinking about: Wow, 10 feet long grilled squid. LOL!

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://xkcd.com/1176/](https://xkcd.com/1176/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Anyone have a link that isn't paywalled?

<comment><USER18> I searched for "giant squid second time" and a link to digg came up (blast from the past). I clicked on that and it has a link to the nytimes, except when I click through from there it doesn't trigger the paywall for me. I wonder how that works and if HN can get in on it.

<comment><USER19> Are we past the point of revolting against our new advertising overlords yet?

<comment><USER20> The NY Times has been charging for its product since 1851. It's only the past 15 years or so that the latest generation thinks that a newspaper company charging money to cover its costs of doing business plus a small profit are somehow "wrong."

You're entitled to feel this way, too, but many people do pay, and like to discuss what they read here.

<comment><USER21> That is fine and dandy, but it would be ideal if the nytimes.com subscribers could go and discuss articles on the nytimes.com website. Anyone who can read the article is already supposed to be a subscriber.

It is hardly a good outcome to invite comment on HN by people only able to read the title.

<comment><USER20> Ok, but the Y Combinator site guidelines say paywalled sites are OK. As their guest here, I follow their rules.

<comment><USER19> It's entirely impossible to participate in the conversation without having read the article in question. At least drop the paywall when you notice a surge in traffic, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> the Kraken returns</comment>


Marketing tools are damaging your SEO - <AUTHOR> https://marketingexamples.com/seo/performance <comment><AUTHOR> Been doing marketing for a while and only just discovered that "Time to Interactive" is a more important metric than "First Meaningful Paint" in Google's eyes.

I see a lot of sites loading in 3rd party scripts such as Intercom, Hotjar, Segment etc ... (killing their Time to Interactive metric)

Once I found such an elegant solution (waiting for a scroll event before loading) I thought it was worth sharing.</comment>


WHAT WILL HAPPEN 5 DAYS BEFORE THE SINGULARITY?  - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2013/08/12/what-will-happen-5-days-before-the-singularity-is-feature-film-aims-to-find-out/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+SingularityHub+(Singularity+Hub)

<comment><USER2> Maybe people will stop shouting on the internet.</comment>